Ketorolac has been known for several years (U.S. Pat. No. 4,089,969) and is used in human therapy as an analgesic and an anti-inflammatory as the tromethamine salt. U.S. Pat. No. 4,089,969 is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Ample literature is available on ketorolac (for instance, “Ketorolac—A review of its pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties and its therapeutic potential”, Drugs 39(1): 86-109, 1990). It is described as a drug with considerably higher analgesic activity than many other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Most significantly, it has analgesic activity comparable to that of the opiates, such as morphine, without the well-known side effects of the latter.
It is known that ketorolac can be formulated as a nasally administrable composition. See U.S. Pat. No. 6,333,044 to Recordati, and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0042968, which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Administering ketorolac tromethamine nasally has certain advantages over administering the compound by injection or orally. These are discussed in prior art references U.S. Pat. No. 6,333,044 and U.S. Patent Publication 2009/0042968. The latter reference teaches that ketorolac tromethamine is successfully combined with a local anesthetic, e.g. lidocaine hydrochloride, to reduce the stinging effect that some patients experience with the nasal administration of ketorolac tromethamine alone.